Skinner Questions

reading questions to

"What we need is a technology of behavior." Why a "technology"? Why won't the other sciences do?
What is the difference between a science of physics and science of behavior?
"Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?"
What is Skinner's complaint about "personalities, states of mind" etc.? What would he replace them with?
What is a "stimulus"? How does it, in concert with a response, form a reflex?
"The environment not only prods or lashes, it selects." What does Skinner mean here?
What is "operant" behavior? How is it different from the Stimulus- Response reflex?
"A scientific analysis...shifts the credit as well as the blame to the environment." Why is this a problem?

How does "operant conditioning" work? What is a "negative reinforcer"? A "positive reinforcer"?
What is the reciprocal reinforcement between a slave driver and a slave?
According to Skinner, what is the "literature of freedom" and what does it define its task as?
What is the problem, with defining freedom as "the feeling of freedom"?
What are the schedules of reinforcement in "piece work" and in gambling? Why are they so powerful at maintaining behavior even in what one might call "aversive" conditions?
Why has the literature of freedom failed to "rescue the happy slave"?

Why do we prefer "weak" practices of control?
Why does "credit vary with the conspicuousness of the reward"?
"We do not protest because we feel resentful...We protest and feel resentful" What is Skinner's point here?
Why does Skinner's "scientific conception" seem demeaning?

What is punishment used for? How does it differ from negative reinforcement?
What is one disadvantage of punishment?
How does Skinner reinterpret the "dynamisms" of Freud?
Why does punishment not teach people how to behave well?
What, in Skinner's terms, is the difference between "being good" and "behaving well"?
How s the visibility of punitive conditions associated with the credit we give to people for "behaving well"?
"Goodness ... waxes as control wanes ..." What does Skinner mean by this?
What does Skinner say is wrong with attempts to "increase a sense of responsibility" in order to deal with alcoholism?
"The mistake ... is to put the responsibility anywhere..." What does Skinner mean by this?
"The literatures of freedom and dignity ... have acted to preserve "[punitive techniques]. Why & how?

Name advantages and disadvantages with these alternatives to punishment: permissiveness, "midwifery," guidance, dependence on things, persuasion.
"What is changed is the probability of action." What does this mean?
What is the difference between "brainwashing" and legitimate persuasion?
What are Skinner's descriptions of: "permissive" governments, "free" economies, "open" schooling, and "non-directive" psychotherapy.
What is "the fundamental mistake of those who choose weak methods of control"?

"If a science of behavior can tell us how to change behavior, can it tell us what changes to make?"
In Skinner's terms, what are "good" and "bad" things?
What is the relationship between a "pleasing" thing and a "reinforcing" thing?
In Skinner's terms, what is it to "act intentionally"?
What is a "conditioned reinforcer"? How is it related to "acting for the good of others"?
Explain how a hero is induced to act for the good of others.
Translate "To get to Boston you ought to use route 1" and "You ought to tell the truth" into Skinnerian terms.
Try doing this to some of the Ten Commandments. Do you lose or gain anything by doing this?
Explain the conflict between obeying the Honor code and not turning in a friend in terms of contingencies of reinforcement.
Translate anomie, hopelessness, and amorality into Skinnerian terms. How does it differ from a dictionary definition?
What advantage does Skinner claim for this sort of translation?
Use the concept of conditioned reinforcers to explain banking a fire and avoiding the rain.

How does the "survival of a culture" emerge as a new value?
How are cultural and species evolution alike?
Why is cultural evolution "Lamarckian"? You will have to look up Lamarck in an encyclopedia.
What is "Social Darwinism"? Why do cultures compete with the environment rather than with each other?
"A culture evolves when new practices further the survival of those who practice them." Why?
Why are personal good, the good of others, and the good of a culture reasons to adopt a technology of behavior?
What produces "feelings" about one's culture and the "desire" to ensure its survival?
What is the value by which a culture should be judged?
What is the honest answer to a question about why we should care about our culture?
"Evolution makes [species and cultures] more sensitive to their environment." Why is this important?
What is the task of the cultural designer?

Does Skinner's description of the college graduate help understand what can be done about his malaise?
In Skinner's terminology, what is extinction?
What data are important in experiments on operant behavior? Why are they helpful in understanding behavior?
What are the three levels of values that teachers, parties, or industrialists can use to determine their designed systems?
How is designing a culture like designing an experiment?
"Unplanned, undictated, and unperfected cultures have failed too." Why is it important to note this?
Why (and how) should we design for variety?
Should we design a world that we would like, or one that the people who live in it would like?
How do we prevent the misuse of controlling power? How does "counter-control" help?
How is learning rapidly likely to induce an organism to form "superstitions"?
Why are more people designing automobiles than are working to improve life in the ghetto?
Can a culture afford leisure?

What do we need, in addition to "a mere shift in emphasis from man to environment" to better control our behavior?
What are Skinner's descriptions of "perceiving," "knowing" and "abstract thinking"?
Self observation can be studied ... The question is not whether a man can know himself, but what he knows when he does so." What does Skinner mean here?
Why is the verbal community important in understanding consciousness?
How does Skinner explain it when a person "discriminates" or "forms a concept" or "remembers"?
What is the relationship between overt and covert behavior? Which comes first?
Skinner makes a distinction between "a body with a person inside" and "a body which is a person." How are these different?
Does Skinner "de-humanize" or "mechanize" humans?
What is Skinner's reply to C. S. Lewis's complaint that "... the power of man to make himself what he pleases ... means ... the power of some men to make other men what they please."
After Newton, says Skinner, "... the rainbow remained as beautiful as ever ..." Will humanity be as "human" as ever after Skinner?

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